The present invention relates to a storage cabinet assembly, and in particular to a storage cabinet assembly including an inventive base assembly for supporting an associated housing, as well as a drop-in drawer arrangement, and an inventive drawer interlock assembly preventing multiple drawers from being simultaneously moved to an opened position.
Storage cabinet assemblies are used in a wide variety of office-type applications, and are provided in a multitude of configurations for storing files, literature, clothing, and the like therein. These storage cabinet assemblies typically include a housing and a plurality of drawers or doors allowing access to an interior space therein. In some applications, these cabinets are required to support a significant load therein, thereby requiring significant structural reinforcement to any supporting base. Further, those storage cabinet assemblies that include a plurality of drawers often include complicated, relatively expensive and relatively difficult to assemble supporting assemblies that allow the drawers to be slidably removed from within the interior space of the housing. Moreover, these cabinets typically include drawer interlock arrangements of relatively complicated design that are adapted to prevent multiple drawers from being simultaneously opened from within the cabinet. These and other current design characteristics result in storage assemblies that are complicated in design, costly to manufacture, difficult to assemble and prone to failure during use.
The present inventive storage cabinet assembly provides a relatively low cost, easy-to-assemble base assembly for supporting an associated housing thereon, that simultaneously provides adequate support for significantly heavy loads. The storage cabinet assembly further provides a drop-in drawer arrangement allowing quick assembly of the drawers with the drawer supporting structure of the storage cabinet assembly by unskilled personnel without the use of specialized tools. Still further, the storage cabinet assembly includes a drawer interlock assembly that prevents the misalignment of associated components within the interlock assembly while associated drawers are moved between opened and closed positions.